Vertical centering of text background color

[NightSky]

I'm trying to migrate a InDesign project to Publisher and I'm currently stuck with this issue: I want to have a word (or more) with a dark background around it. In InDesign it is done with a ultra large bottom line. In Publisher I found the text background option that almost works. Almost... because it seems not to be a way to vcenter the word onto the background: the bottom part is noticably higher than the top part. Any idea? Is there a feature? Will it ever be one?

I attach two examples. The first one is how it appears on InDesign, the second one is how i managed to replicate it on Publisher.

Thank you

Edited May 28, 2019 by NightSky

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forum NightSky.
I think the Character Background Colour only works the way you want it to work depending on which font you are using and how that font was designed.
I’ve tried to use it with various fonts with different results. For example, in the attached GIF, it’s fine with Cambria but not Cambria Math, and it’s fine with Cinzel but not Cinzel Decorative.
I don’t think you can use the ‘thick underline’ trick as Publisher doesn’t let you – as far as I know – specify the thickness of an underline.
I’ll try and think of a decent way to do what you want but I don’t think a solution will be nice.

Edited May 29, 2019 by GarryP
Oops, forgot the GIF.

[NigelH]

You can create a text frame with a dark background and the highlighted text in white, centred vertically and horizontally. This can then be copied and pasted as a text character into the rest of the text. You'll need to select the inserted frame as if it were a character and baseline shift it to the right position. You might also need to do some work on the leading of the rest of the text too.

As GarryP said, it may not be nice, but it seems to work.

[walt.farrell]

34 minutes ago, NigelH said:

You can create a text frame with a dark background and the highlighted text in white, centred vertically and horizontally. This can then be copied and pasted as a text character into the rest of the text. You'll need to select the inserted frame as if it were a character and baseline shift it to the right position. You might also need to do some work on the leading of the rest of the text too.

I'm having a hard time getting that to work, Nigel. Can you provide a sample .afpub file that demonstrates it?

[NigelH]

No problem, it's attached.

I've found most design programs let you copy design items and paste them into text as if they are text characters. It can be useful at times and experimenting showed Publisher lets you do it with other text frames.

Text with dark background.afpub

[GarryP]

The official Affinity name for pasting non-text items into a text frame is "Pinning" - it's outlined in the latest Help - and it hasn't been in Publisher for very long (only the last two betas, or something like that).

[NightSky]

Wow guys, I cannot leave you alone for one day and you already answred. Thank you, what a great community!

@GarryP Thank you for the GIF. In fact i think the "thick underline" was a workaround for InDesign. Will try what @NigelH sudgests.

Please let me know if any other idea comes up on this. There's maybe some room for new funcitonality?  

[Johanness]

I know its an old topic, but I came across a siomilar problem and found, that the character background extends to the highest and lowest character in that line. My workaround for now is to adjust the groundline for the space directly before the highlighted text with a positive value and the one directly after the highlighted text with a negative value. The spaces dont have to be part of the highlighted box - they just tell the highlighting box how far it has to stretch vertically. And the good part is, the space doesn't get compressed horizontally and doesn't affect the line-spacing, so apart from the desired effect nothing changes.
(see picture, where the doashed boxes represent the spaces with shifted groundline - even expanding into the line abouve without affecting it.

 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Johanness